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Showing posts with label Adam Rakunas. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Adam Rakunas. Show all posts

Monday, June 06, 2016

The View From Monday - June 6, 2016


Happy Monday! This is a busy week for debut novels!

Silent Hall by N.S. Dolkart;

The Many Selves of Katherine North by Emma Geen;

Infomocracy by Malka Older;

Hell's Gate by Bill Schutt and J. R. Finch;

The Root by Na'amen Gobert Tilahun;

Security by Gina Wohlsdorf;

and

Magruder's Curiosity Cabinet by H.P. Wood.


Clicking on a novel cover will take you to its Amazon page.


From formerly featured DAC Authors:

The Suicide Motor Club by Christopher Buehlman;

Saint's Blood (The Greatcoats Quartet 3) by Sebastien de Castell;

The Wheel of Osheim (The Red Queen's War 3) by Mark Lawrence;

Like a Boss (Windswept 2) by Adam Rakunas;

Nova (Nova 1) by Margaret Fortune is out in Mass Market Paperback;

and

Queen of Fire (Raven's Shadow 3) by Anthony Ryan is out in Trade Paperback.


Clicking on a novel cover will take you to its Amazon page.


Debut novels are highlighted in blue. Novels by formerly featured Debut Author Challenge Authors are highlighted in green.






June 7, 2016
TITLEAUTHORSERIES
The Year's Best Military & Adventure SF 2015: Volume 2 David Afsharirad (Ed) SF - Anthology
Three Faces of Asprin Robert Asprin SF - Collection
The Medusa Chronicles Stephen Baxter
Alastair Reynolds
SF - Medusa 2
The Suicide Motor Club Christopher Buehlman H/DF
Saint's Blood Sebastien de Castell HistF - The Greatcoats Quartet 3
The Best Science Fiction of the Year: Volume One Neil Clarke (Ed) SF - Anthology
Spear of Light Brenda Cooper SF/SO - The Glittering Edge 2
The Best Horror of the Year Volume Eight Ellen Datlow (Ed) H - Anthology
Lethal Kisses: 18 Tales of Sex, Horror, and Revenge (e) Ellen Datlow (Ed) H - Anthology
Silent Hall (D) N. S. Dolkart F - Silent Hall 1
Mash Up Gardner Dozois (Ed) SF/F - Anthology
Death's Bright Day David Drake SF - RCN 11
A Green and Ancient Light Frederic S. Durbin HistF
Nova (h2mm) Margaret Fortune SF - Nova 1
Neverwhere: Author's Preferred Text (h2tp) Neil Gaiman CF
The Many Selves of Katherine North (D) Emma Geen LF
Warcraft - Official Movie Novelization Christie Golden F
DR. DOA Simon R. Green UF - Secret Histories 10
From a Drood to A Kill (h2mm) Simon R. Green UF - Secret Histories 9
Death Masks Ed Greenwood F - Forgotten Realms
Death of the Old World Guy Haley
Josh Reynolds
F - The End Times 3
The Gospel of Loki (h2tp) Joanne M. Harris F
The Vampire's Protector Michele Hauf PNR
Autumn Princess, Dragon Child Lian Hearn F - The Tale of Shikanoko 2
Devastating Hate Markus Heitz F - The Legends of the Alfar 2
Awakened by the Wolf Kristal Hollis PNR
The Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy 2016 Edition Rich Horton (Ed) SF/F - Anthology
Little Sister Dev Jarrett H
Assassin Queen Anna Kashina F/FR - Majat Code 3
End of Watch Stephen King Sus/H - The Bill Hodges Trilogy 3
Last Call at the Nightshade Lounge Paul Krueger UF /P
A Study in Sable Mercedes Lackey HistF - Elemental Masters 11
From a High Tower (h2mm) Mercedes Lackey HistF - Elemental Masters 10
Sense of Deception (h2mm) Victoria Laurie PM - Psychic Eye Mystery 13
The Wheel of Osheim Mark Lawrence F - The Red Queen's War 3
Allhallow's Eve (e)(ri) Richard Laymon H
Night's Master (ri) Tanith Lee F/DF - Flat Earth 1
Charnel House (e)(ri) Graham Masterton H
The Devils of D-Day (e)(ri) Graham Masterton H
The Devil in Gray (e)(ri) Graham Masterton H
Three Moments of an Explosion: Stories (h2tp) China Miéville F/CF - Collection
Robert Asprin's Myth-Fits Jody Lynn Nye F/HU - Myth-Adventures 20
Infomocracy (D) Malka Older SF/CyberP
Pathfinder Tales: Liar's Bargain Tim Pratt F - Pathfinder Tales 33
Like a Boss Adam Rakunas SF - Windswept 2
Black Tide Rising John Ringo (Ed)
Gary Poole (Ed)
PA/AP - Anthology
Peel Back the Skin: Anthology of Horror Stories Anthony Rivera (Ed)
Sharon Lawson (Ed)
H - Anthology
A Tale of the Free: Exile (e) Brian Ruckley F
Queen of Fire (h2tp) Anthony Ryan F - Raven's Shadow 3
Otto Binder: The Life and Work of a Comic Book and Science Fiction Visionary Bill Schelly LC/PopCul
Galactic Games Bryan Thomas Schmidt (Ed) SF - Anthology
Hell's Gate (D) Bill Schutt
J. R. Finch
HistScTh
An Affinity for Steel Sam Sykes F - The Aeons' Gate Trilogy Omnibus
Just One Damned Thing After Another Jodi Taylor SF/TT - Chronicles of St. Mary's 1
The Bookman (ri) Lavie Tidhar SP - Bookman Histories 1
The Root (D) Na'amen Gobert Tilahun UF - Wrath & Athenaeum 1
The Price of Valor (h2mm) Django Wexler F - The Shadow Campaigns 3
Empire of Imagination: Gary Gygax and the Birth of Dungeons & Dragons (h2tp) Michael Witwer Biography
Security (D) Gina Wohlsdorf Sus
Magruder's Curiosity Cabinet (D) H.P. Wood Hist
Sisters of Tomorrow: The First Women of Science Fiction Lisa Yaszek (Ed)
Patrick B. Sharp (Ed)
SF - Anthology
The Fellowship: The Literary Lives of the Inklings: J.R.R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, Owen Barfield, Charles Williams (h2tp) Philip Zaleski
Carol Zaleski
Biography



June 8, 2016
TITLEAUTHORSERIES
Lullaby for a Lost World: A Tor.Com Original (e) Aliette de Bodard DF



June 9, 2016
TITLEAUTHORSERIES
Invasion: Extinction Biome Volume 1 (e) Addison Gunn SF - Extinction Biome
Operation Atlas Lion (e) Addison Gunn SF - Extinction Biome: Invasion 5
The Poisoned Quarrel: Episode 3 (e) Duncan Lay F - Poisoned Quarrel




D - Debut
e - eBook
Ed - editor
h2mm - Hardcover to Mass Market Paperback
h2tp - Hardcover to Trade Paperback
tp2mm - Trade to Mass Market Paperback
ri - reissue or reprint


AC - Alien Contact
AH - Alternate History
AP - Apocalyptic
CF - Contemporary Fantasy
CoA - Coming of Age
CW - Contemporary Women
CyberP - Cyberpunk
DF - Dark Fantasy
Dys - Dystopian
F - Fantasy
FairyT - Fairy Tale
FolkT - Folk Tale
FR - Fantasy Romance
GH - Ghost
H - Horror
Hist - Historical
HistF - Historical Fantasy
HistScTh - Historical Science Thriller
HistTh - Historical Thriller
HU - Humor
LC - Literary Criticism
LF - Literary Fiction
LM - Legends and Mythology
M - Mystery
MR - Magical Realism
Occ - Occult
P - Paranormal
PA - Post Apocalyptic
PHR - Paranormal Historical Romance
PM - Paranormal Mystery
PNR - Paranormal Romance
PopCul - Popular Culture
Psy - Psychological
R - Romance
SF - Science Fiction
SO - Space Opera
SP - Steampunk
Sup - Supernatural
SupTh - Supernatural Thriller
Sus - Suspense
Th - Thriller
TT - Time Travel
UF - Urban Fantasy
Z - Zombies

Note: not all of these genres are represented in the above releases.

Wednesday, April 20, 2016

What's Up for the Debut Author Challenge Authors? - Part 49


This is the forty-ninth in a series of updates about formerly featured Debut Author Challenge authors and their 2015 works published since the last update and any upcoming works for 2016. The year in parentheses after the author's name is the year she/he was featured in the Debut Author Challenge.

This Update includes covers that have recently been revealed (by the author or publisher) for books already mentioned in a previous update and/or new books.



Part 1 herePart 11 herePart 21 herePart 31 herePart 41 here
Part 2 herePart 12 herePart 22 herePart 32 herePart 42 here
Part 3 herePart 13 herePart 23 herePart 33 herePart 43 here
Part 4 herePart 14 herePart 24 herePart 34 herePart 44 here
Part 5 herePart 15 herePart 25 herePart 35 herePart 45 here
Part 6 herePart 16 herePart 26 herePart 36 herePart 46 here
Part 7 herePart 17 herePart 27 herePart 37 herePart 47 here
Part 8 herePart 18 herePart 28 herePart 38 herePart 48 here
Part 9 herePart 19 herePart 29 herePart 39 here
Part 10 herePart 20 herePart 30 herePart 40 here



Ilana C. Myer (2015)

Last Song Before Night
Tor Books, November 8, 2016
Trade Paperback, 432 pages
Hardcover and eBook, September 29, 2015

A high fantasy following a young woman's defiance of her culture as she undertakes a dangerous quest to restore her world's lost magic in Ilana C. Myer's Last Song Before Night.

Her name was Kimbralin Amaristoth: sister to a cruel brother, daughter of a hateful family. But that name she has forsworn, and now she is simply Lin, a musician and lyricist of uncommon ability in a land where women are forbidden to answer such callings-a fugitive who must conceal her identity or risk imprisonment and even death.

On the eve of a great festival, Lin learns that an ancient scourge has returned to the land of Eivar, a pandemic both deadly and unnatural. Its resurgence brings with it the memory of an apocalypse that transformed half a continent. Long ago, magic was everywhere, rising from artistic expression-from song, from verse, from stories. But in Eivar, where poets once wove enchantments from their words and harps, the power was lost. Forbidden experiments in blood divination unleashed the plague that is remembered as the Red Death, killing thousands before it was stopped, and Eivar's connection to the Otherworld from which all enchantment flowed, broken.

The Red Death's return can mean only one thing: someone is spilling innocent blood in order to master dark magic. Now poets who thought only to gain fame for their songs face a challenge much greater: galvanized by Valanir Ocune, greatest Seer of the age, Lin and several others set out to reclaim their legacy and reopen the way to the Otherworld-a quest that will test their deepest desires, imperil their lives, and decide the future.
[description from Hardcover]
Amazon : Barnes and Noble : Book Depository : Books-A-Million : IndieBound
Google Play : iBooks : Kobo





Adam Rakunas (2015)

Like A Boss
Angry Robot Books, June 7, 2016
    Mass Market Paperback (US), 384 pages
Angry Robot Books, June 2, 2016
   Paperback (UK) and eBook

In this breathless and hilarious followup to Windswept, former labor organiser Padma’s worst nightmare comes true: she gets yanked out of early retirement.

After buying her favourite rum distillery and settling down, she thought she’d heard the last of her arch nemesis, Evanrute Saarien. But Saarien, fresh out of prison for his misdeeds in Windswept, has just fabricated a new religion, positioning himself as its holy leader. He’s telling his congregation to go on strike, to fight the system. And unfortunately, they’re listening to him.

Now Padma’s summoned by the Union president to help stop this strike from happening. The problem is, she’s out of practice. And, the more she digs, the more she realises this whole strike business is more complicated than the Union president let on…

File Under: Science Fiction [ Fraud Almighty / City on Fire / Let’s Be Reasonable Please / All Outta Bubble Gum ]
Amazon : Barnes and Noble : Book Depository : Books-A-Million : IndieBound
iBooks : Kobo





Ferrett Steinmetz (2015)

Fix
'Mancer 3
Angry Robot Books, September 1, 2016
    Mass Market Paperback (US) and eBook, 384 pages
Angry Robot Books, September 6, 2016
   Paperback (UK)

America’s long sent its best SMASH agents overseas to deal with the European crisis. As of today, they decided dismantling your operation was more important than containing the Bastogne Broach. Now you’re dealing with the real professionals.

Paul Tsabo: Bureaucromancer. Political activist. Loving father. His efforts to decriminalize magic have made him the government’s #1 enemy - and his fugitive existence has robbed his daughter of a normal life.

Aliyah Tsabo-Dawson: Videogamemancer. Gifted unearthly powers by a terrorist’s magic. Raised by a family of magicians, she’s the world’s loneliest teenager - because her powers might kill anyone she befriends.

The Unimancers: Brain-burned zombies. Former ‘mancers, tortured into becoming agents of the government’s anti-‘mancer squad. An unstoppable hive-mind.

When Paul accidentally opens up the first unsealed dimensional broach on American soil, the Unimancers lead his family in a cat-and-mouse pursuit all the way to the demon-haunted ruins of Europe - where Aliyah is slowly corrupted by the siren call of the Unimancers…

File Under: Urban Fantasy
Amazon : Barnes and Noble : Book Depository : Books-A-Million : IndieBound
iBooks : Kobo





Auralee Wallace (2014)

Pumpkin Picking with Murder
An Otter Lake Mystery 2
St. Martin's Paperbacks, August 2016
Mass Market Paperback and eBook, 336 pages

When murder strikes in the Tunnel of Love, Erica Bloom has to rock the boat to catch a killer…

For a small town like Otter Lake, New Hampshire, the annual Fall Festival is a big deal: a Ferris wheel, corn maze, caramel apples, and pumpkin pies—even a Tunnel of Love. Back in her hometown, Erica Bloom is trying to enjoy herself, which includes getting better acquainted with Sheriff Grady Forrester. But when a swan boat sails out of the heart-shaped exit of the tunnel with a dead man slumped over a wing, her own romance will have to take a backseat.

PUMPKIN PICKING WITH MURDER

Speaking of love affairs, the other passenger in the boat—and only witness to the elderly Mr. Masterson’s swan song—is not his wife. It’s Erica’s beloved and feisty “aunt,” Tweety, who quickly becomes the prime suspect. Vowing to clear Tweety, Erica teams up with her sassy BFF and self-appointed security expert Freddie Ng to solve the murder—despite the objections of Grady, who’s convinced the amateurs are going overboard in their investigation. And he just may be right. But as Erica and Freddie start to dredge up long-kept small-town secrets, will they heading straight into troubled waters?

Pumpkin Picking with Murder is the second book in Auralee Wallace's Otter Lake Mystery series!
Amazon : Barnes and Noble : Book Depository : Books-A-Million : IndieBound
Google Play : iBooks : Kobo





Max Wirestone (2015)

The Unfortunate Decisions of Dahlia Moss
Redhook, September 20, 2016
Trade Paperback, 320 pages
Hardcover and eBook, October 20, 2015

The perfect mystery for anyone who has ever geeked out about something and for fans of The Guild, New Girl, Scott Pilgrim, Big Bang Theory, Veronica Mars.
Meet Dahlia Moss, the reigning queen of unfortunate decision-making in the St. Louis area. She is unemployed, broke, and on her last bowl of ramen. But that's all about to change.

Before Dahlia can make her life any messier on her own she's offered a job. A job that she's woefully under-qualified for. A job that will lead her to a murder, an MMORPG, and possibly a fella (or two?).
Amazon : Barnes and Noble : Book Depository : Books-A-Million : IndieBound
Google Play : iBooks : Kobo

Tuesday, September 15, 2015

2015 Debut Author Challenge Cover Wars - September Debuts



Each month you will be able to vote for your favorite cover from that month's debut novels. At the end of the year the 12 monthly winners will be pitted against each other to choose the 2015 Debut Novel Cover of the Year. Please note that a debut novel cover is eligible in the month in which the novel is released in the US. Cover artist/illustrator information is provided when we have it.

I'm using PollCode for this vote. After you the check the circle next to your favorite, click "Vote" to record your vote. If you'd like to see the real-time results click "View". This will take you to the PollCode site where you may see the results. If you want to come back to The Qwillery click "Back" and you will return to this page. Voting will end sometime on September 24, 2015.


Vote for your favorite September 2015 Debut Cover!
 
pollcode.com free polls




Design: Nico Taylor - Illustration: Steve Stone












Cover Artist: Ben Gardiner



Cover Artist: Sam Weber












Cover Artist: Stephan Martiniere



Cover Artist: Jessica Smith



Cover design by Paul Tassi



Cover Artist: Patrick Knowles






Cover Artist: Stephan Martiniere






Book design by Meighan Cavanaugh

Friday, September 04, 2015

Interview with Adam Rakunas, author of Windswept


Please welcome Adam Rakunas to The Qwillery as part of the 2015 Debut Author Challenge Interviews. Windswept was published on September 1st by Angry Robot Books.







TQWelcome to The Qwillery. When and why did you start writing?

Adam:  First grade.

No, really! The first story I ever wrote was after my dad took me to my first baseball game, the California Angels versus the Toronto Blue Jays. The Angels were my home team, and they got stomped. The next day, we had a class assignment to write a story, so I wrote one about I had gone to a baseball game and heard the Blue Jays’ manager say they were going to cheat. I told the umpire, the Angels won, and I saved the day. Clearly, I was meant to be a fantasist.



TQAre you a plotter or a pantser? What is the most challenging thing for you about writing?

Adam:  I’m a Reformed Pantser. I need structure to keep a story moving, so I spend all my agonizing time working on outlines. Windswept took two years for a first draft; its sequel took six months, all thanks to Mark Teppo’s Twenty-Five Chapter Structure (ALL PRAISE TEPPO). By having a framework, I can focus on having Padma talking.



TQYour bio states that you've been a "virtual world developer" among other things. How has this experience affected or not your novel writing?

Adam:  That was the weirdest desk job I ever had. I still can’t believe I was paid to do that or that people made large amounts of money during that Second Life land rush. I suppose that experience reminded me that business is weird, and that it’s a miracle the whole economy doesn’t implode on a more regular basis.

I supposed its greatest effect was that it reminded me that I am terrible at working with clients.



TQWho are some of your literary influences? Favorite authors?

Adam:  Douglas Adams for the absurdity. Kurt Vonnegut for the humanity. Beverley Cleary for the character focus.



TQDescribe Windswept in 140 characters or less.

Adam:  Padma Mehta is in a race against time to save her city, her world, and Occupied Space...all before Happy Hour.



TQTell us something about Windswept that is not found in the book description.

Adam:  It’s the science fiction screwball noir you never thought you needed until now.

I love screwball comedies. I love the way the dialogue crackles. I love how smart the characters are. I could see Padma mixing it up with Cary Grant and besting him.



TQWhat inspired you to write Windswept?

Adam:  I was in Honolulu to officiate a wedding (I’m a non-denominational minister, and I work for beer and tacos), and I was sitting at the hotel bar before the rehearsal dinner. All the people working there had name tags with their home towns, and no one was from Hawaii. Everyone had come here to one of the most beautiful places on Earth, and they were pouring drinks or bussing tables. All over the island, people were doing the jobs that kept the place running. If I were in their place, would I be able to focus on work, or would I be thinking about running around Diamondhead or surfing on the North Shore or doing anything other than wanting to work?

I started pecking away on my phone and wrote out the first scene: Padma sitting at her local bar, thinking about work. She wanted to quit to enjoy the beautiful place she lived in, but she couldn’t yet. Why?

And then we were off to the races.



TQWhat appeals to you about writing Science Fiction? In your opinion, should SF tackle big issues, just be entertaining, or do both?

Adam:  I grew up reading science fiction, starting with Douglas Adams and Star Trek before a college friend loaned me his copy of Kim Stanley Robinson’s Three Californias. It hadn’t occurred to me that you could write stories about futures like that. You can make a blueprint for the future you want (like Pacific Edge) or the ones to avoid (like The Wild Shore or The Gold Coast).

But you also have to tell a good story, and those books did that in spades. Tackling issues is important, but I like a story that sneaks in the editorials.



TQWhat sort of research did you do for Windswept?

Adam:  I bookmarked a lot of pages on Wikipedia about sugarcane, rum, and horrible plant diseases. I winged it for the rest.



TQWho was the easiest character to write and why? The hardest and why?

Adam:  Padma was both. It was a lot of fun to write her snappy rejoinders, but I had a hell of a time making her be little more than a quip machine. I hope I pulled it off.



TQWhich question about Windswept do you wish someone would ask? Ask it and answer it!

Adam:  Why a crane chase? Because I thought it would be funny.



TQGive us one or two of your favorite non-spoilery lines from Windswept.

Adam:  “Your level isn’t on the level. You’re so crooked it defies physics.”



TQWhat's next?

Adam:  I’m revising the sequel to Windswept right now. As soon as I turn that in to my cybernetic overlords at Angry Robot Books, I want to get started on a story about family stories and talking guns.



TQ:  Thank you for joining us at The Qwillery.

Adam:  Thanks for having me!





Windswept
Windswept 1
Angry Robot Books, September 1, 2015
Mass Market Paperback and eBook, 400 pages

Padma Mehta has to save her city, her planet, and Occupied Space from a devastating crop-killing plague — all before Happy Hour.

Labor organizer Padma Mehta is on the edge of space and the edge of burnout. All she wants is to buy out a little rum distillery and retire, but she’s supposed to recruit 500 people to the Union before she can. She’s only thirty-three short. So when a small-time con artist tells her about forty people ready to tumble down the space elevator to break free from her old bosses, she checks it out — against her better judgment. It turns out, of course, it was all lies.

As Padma should know by now, there are no easy shortcuts on her planet. And suddenly retirement seems farther away than ever: she’s just stumbled into a secret corporate mission to stop a plant disease that could wipe out all the industrial sugarcane in Occupied Space. If she ever wants to have another drink of her favorite rum, she’s going to have to fight her way through the city’s warehouses, sewage plants, and up the elevator itself to stop this new plague.

File Under: Science Fiction [ Plagues, Plots & Planets • One-Eyed Wonder • Bad Tips, Good Tipples • This Little Bar I Know ]
Amazon : Barnes and Noble : Book Depository : Books-A-Million : IndieBound
Google Play : Kobo





About Adam

Adam Rakunas has worked a variety of weird jobs. He’s been a virtual world developer, a parking lot attendant, a triathlon race director, a fast food cashier, and an online marketing consultant.

Now a stay-at-home dad, Adam splits his non-parenting time between writing, playing the cello, and political rabble-rousing. His stories have appeared in Futurismic and the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. Windswept is his first novel.



You can find Adam online at his website: www.giro.org, on Twitter @rakdaddy and on Facebook and Tumblr.


Tuesday, September 01, 2015

2015 Debut Author Challenge - September Debuts




There are 17 debuts for September. Please note that we use the publisher's publication date in the United States, not copyright dates or non-US publication dates.

The September debut authors and their novels are listed in alphabetical order by author (not book title or publication date). Take a good look at the covers. Voting for your favorite September cover for the 2015 Debut Author Challenge Cover Wars will take place starting on September 15th.

If you are participating as a reader in the Challenge, please let us know in the comments what you are thinking of reading or email us at "DAC . TheQwillery @ gmail . com" (remove the spaces and quotation marks). Please note that we list all debuts for the month (of which we are aware), but not all of these authors will be 2015 Debut Author Challenge featured authors. However, any of these novels may be read by Challenge readers to meet the goal for September. The list is correct as of the day posted.




Stephen Aryan

Battlemage
Age of Darkness 1
Orbit, September 22, 2015
Trade Paperback and eBook, 512 pages

When you fight magic with magic, nothing is certain...

Balfruss is a battlemage, one of the last of a vanishing breed, sworn to fight and die for a country that fears and despises his kind.

Vargus is a soldier, and while mages shoot lightning from the walls of the city, he's down in the front lines getting blood on his blade.

Talandra is a princess and her father's spymaster, but the war may force her to take up a greater responsibility, and make the greatest sacrifice of all.

Known for their unpredictable, dangerous power, society has left battlemages untrained and shunned. But when a force unlike anything ever imagined attacks them, the few remaining are called upon to go to war -- to save those who fear them most, and herald in a new age of peace, built on the corpses of their enemies.
Amazon : Barnes and Noble : Book Depository : Books-A-Million : IndieBound
Google Play : iBooks : Kobo



Edward Ashton

Three Days in April
Harper Voyager Impulse, September 15, 2015
eBook, 384 pages

Anders Jensen is having a bad month. His roommate is a data thief, his girlfriend picks fights in bars, and his best friend is a cyborg…and a lousy tipper. When everything is spiraling out of control, though, maybe those are exactly the kind of friends you need.

In a world divided between the genetically engineered elite and the unmodified masses, Anders is an anomaly: engineered, but still broke and living next to a crack house. All he wants is to land a tenure-track faculty position, and maybe meet someone who's not technically a criminal—but when a nightmare plague rips through Hagerstown, Anders finds himself dodging kinetic energy weapons and government assassins as Baltimore slips into chaos. His friends aren't as helpless as they seem, though, and his girlfriend's street-magician brother-in-law might be a pretentious hipster—or might hold the secret to saving them all.

Frenetic and audacious, Three Days in April is a speculative thriller that raises an important question: once humanity goes down the rabbit hole, can it ever find its way back?
Amazon : Barnes and Noble : Books-A-Million : Google Play : iBooks : Kobo



Adrian Barnes

Nod
Titan Books, September 1, 2015
Trade Paperback and eBook, 272 pages

Dawn breaks over Vancouver and no-one in the world has slept the night before, or almost no-one. A few people, perhaps one in ten thousand can still sleep, and they've all shared the same golden dream. A handful of children still sleep as well, but what they're dreaming remains a mystery. After six days of absolute sleep deprivation, psychosis will set in. After four weeks, the body will die. In the interim, panic ensues and a bizarre new world arises in which those previously on the fringes of society take the lead. One couple experience a lifetime in a week as he continues to sleep, she begins to disintegrate before him, and the new world swallows the old one whole...
Amazon : Barnes and Noble : Book Depository : Books-A-Million : IndieBound



Zen Cho

Sorcerer to the Crown
Sorcerer Royal 1
Ace, September 1, 2015
Hardcover and eBook, 384 pages

In this sparkling debut, magic and mayhem clash with the British elite…

The Royal Society of Unnatural Philosophers, one of the most respected organizations throughout all of England, has long been tasked with maintaining magic within His Majesty’s lands. But lately, the once proper institute has fallen into disgrace, naming an altogether unsuitable gentleman—a freed slave who doesn’t even have a familiar—as their Sorcerer Royal, and allowing England’s once profuse stores of magic to slowly bleed dry. At least they haven’t stooped so low as to allow women to practice what is obviously a man’s profession…

At his wit’s end, Zacharias Wythe, Sorcerer Royal of the Unnatural Philosophers and eminently proficient magician, ventures to the border of Fairyland to discover why England’s magical stocks are drying up. But when his adventure brings him in contact with a most unusual comrade, a woman with immense power and an unfathomable gift, he sets on a path which will alter the nature of sorcery in all of Britain—and the world at large…
Amazon : Barnes and Noble : Book Depository : Books-A-Million : IndieBound



Gerrard Cowan

The Machinery
The Machinery Trilogy 1
Harper Voyager UK, September 10, 2015
eBook, 400 pages

For ten millennia, the leaders of the Overland have been Selected by the Machinery, an omnipotent machine gifted to their world in darker days.

The city has thrived in arts, science and war, crushing all enemies and expanding to encompass the entire Plateau.

But the Overland is not at ease, for the Machinery came with the Prophecy: it will break in the 10,000th year, Selecting just one leader who will bring Ruin to the world. And with the death of Strategist Kane, a Selection is set to occur…

For Apprentice Watcher Katrina Paprissi, the date has special significance. Life hasn’t been the same since she witnessed the kidnapping of her brother Alexander, the only person on the Plateau who knew the meaning of the Prophecy.

When the opportunity arises to find her brother, Katrina must travel into the depths of the Underland, the home of the Machinery, to confront the Operator himself and discover just what makes the world work…
Amazon : Barnes and Noble : Books-A-Million : Google Play : iBooks : Kobo



Seth Dickinson

The Traitor Baru Cormorant
Tor Books, September 15, 2015
Hardcover and eBook, 400 pages

In Seth Dickinson's highly-anticipated debut The Traitor Baru Cormorant, a young woman from a conquered people tries to transform an empire in this richly imagined geopolitical fantasy.

Baru Cormorant believes any price is worth paying to liberate her people-even her soul.

When the Empire of Masks conquers her island home, overwrites her culture, criminalizes her customs, and murders one of her fathers, Baru vows to swallow her hate, join the Empire's civil service, and claw her way high enough to set her people free.

Sent as an Imperial agent to distant Aurdwynn, another conquered country, Baru discovers it's on the brink of rebellion. Drawn by the intriguing duchess Tain Hu into a circle of seditious dukes, Baru may be able to use her position to help. As she pursues a precarious balance between the rebels and a shadowy cabal within the Empire, she orchestrates a do-or-die gambit with freedom as the prize.

But the cost of winning the long game of saving her people may be far greater than Baru imagines.
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Ellen Herrick

The Sparrow Sisters
William Morrow Paperbacks, September 1, 2015
Trade Paperback and eBook, 384 pages

With echoes of the alchemy of Practical Magic, the lushness of Saving CeeCee Honeycutt, and the darkly joyful wickedness of the Witches of Eastwick, Ellen Herrick’s debut novel spins an enchanting love story about a place where magic whispers just beneath the surface and almost anything is possible, if you aren’t afraid to listen.

The Sparrow Sisters are as tightly woven into the seaside New England town of Granite Point as the wild sweet peas that climb the stone walls along the harbor. Sorrel, Nettie and Patience are as colorful as the beach plums on the dunes and as mysterious as the fog that rolls into town at dusk.

Patience is the town healer and when a new doctor settles into Granite Point he brings with him a mystery so compelling that Patience is drawn to love him, even as she struggles to mend him. But when Patience Sparrow’s herbs and tinctures are believed to be implicated in a local tragedy, Granite Point is consumed by a long-buried fear—and its three hundred year old history resurfaces as a modern day witch-hunt threatens. The plants and flowers, fruit trees and high hedges begin to wither and die, and the entire town begins to fail; fishermen return to the harbor empty-handed, and blight descends on the old elms that line the lanes.

It seems as if Patience and her town are lost until the women of Granite Point band together to save the Sparrow. As they gather, drawing strength from each other, will they be able to turn the tide and return life to Granite Point?

The Sparrow Sisters is a beautiful, haunting, and thoroughly mesmerizing novel that will capture your imagination.
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C.A. Higgins

Lightless
Del Rey, September 29, 2015
Hardcover and eBook, 304 Pages

With deeply moving human drama, nail-biting suspense—and bold speculation informed by a degree in physics—C. A. Higgins spins a riveting science fiction debut guaranteed to catapult readers beyond their expectations.

Serving aboard the Ananke, an experimental military spacecraft launched by the ruthless organization that rules Earth and its solar system, computer scientist Althea has established an intense emotional bond—not with any of her crewmates, but with the ship’s electronic systems, which speak more deeply to her analytical mind than human feelings do. But when a pair of fugitive terrorists gain access to the Ananke, Althea must draw upon her heart and soul for the strength to defend her beloved ship.

While one of the saboteurs remains at large somewhere on board, his captured partner—the enigmatic Ivan—may prove to be more dangerous. The perversely fascinating criminal whose silver tongue is his most effective weapon has long evaded the authorities’ most relentless surveillance—and kept the truth about his methods and motives well hidden.

As the ship’s systems begin to malfunction and the claustrophobic atmosphere is increasingly poisoned by distrust and suspicion, it falls to Althea to penetrate the prisoner’s layers of intrigue and deception before all is lost. But when the true nature of Ivan’s mission is exposed, it will change Althea forever—if it doesn’t kill her first.
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Mitchell Hogan

A Crucible of Souls
Sorcery Ascendant Sequence 1
Harper Voyager, September 22, 2015
Trade Paperback and eBook, 512 pages

An imaginative new talent makes his debut with the acclaimed first installment in the epic Sorcery Ascendant Sequence, a mesmerizing tale of high fantasy that combines magic, malevolence, and mystery.

When young Caldan’s parents are brutally slain, the boy is raised by monks who initiate him into the arcane mysteries of sorcery.

Growing up plagued by questions about his past, Caldan vows to discover who his parents were, and why they were violently killed. The search will take him beyond the walls of the monastery, into the unfamiliar and dangerous chaos of city life. With nothing to his name but a pair of mysterious heirlooms and a handful of coins, he must prove his talent to become apprenticed to a guild of sorcerers.

But the world outside the monastery is a darker place than he ever imagined, and his treasured sorcery has disturbing depths he does not fully understand. As a shadowed evil manipulates the unwary and forbidden powers are unleashed, Caldan is plunged into an age-old conflict that will bring the world to the edge of destruction.

Soon, he must choose a side, and face the true cost of uncovering his past.
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Ilana C. Myer

Last Song Before Night
Tor Books, September 29, 2015
Hardcover and eBook, 416 pages

A high fantasy following a young woman's defiance of her culture as she undertakes a dangerous quest to restore her world's lost magic in Ilana C. Myer's Last Song Before Night.

Her name was Kimbralin Amaristoth: sister to a cruel brother, daughter of a hateful family. But that name she has forsworn, and now she is simply Lin, a musician and lyricist of uncommon ability in a land where women are forbidden to answer such callings-a fugitive who must conceal her identity or risk imprisonment and even death.

On the eve of a great festival, Lin learns that an ancient scourge has returned to the land of Eivar, a pandemic both deadly and unnatural. Its resurgence brings with it the memory of an apocalypse that transformed half a continent. Long ago, magic was everywhere, rising from artistic expression-from song, from verse, from stories. But in Eivar, where poets once wove enchantments from their words and harps, the power was lost. Forbidden experiments in blood divination unleashed the plague that is remembered as the Red Death, killing thousands before it was stopped, and Eivar's connection to the Otherworld from which all enchantment flowed, broken.

The Red Death's return can mean only one thing: someone is spilling innocent blood in order to master dark magic. Now poets who thought only to gain fame for their songs face a challenge much greater: galvanized by Valanir Ocune, greatest Seer of the age, Lin and several others set out to reclaim their legacy and reopen the way to the Otherworld-a quest that will test their deepest desires, imperil their lives, and decide the future.
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Adam Rakunas

Windswept
Windswept 1
Angry Robot Books, September 1, 2015
Mass Market Paperback and eBook, 400 pages

Padma Mehta has to save her city, her planet, and Occupied Space from a devastating crop-killing plague — all before Happy Hour.

Labor organizer Padma Mehta is on the edge of space and the edge of burnout. All she wants is to buy out a little rum distillery and retire, but she’s supposed to recruit 500 people to the Union before she can. She’s only thirty-three short. So when a small-time con artist tells her about forty people ready to tumble down the space elevator to break free from her old bosses, she checks it out — against her better judgment. It turns out, of course, it was all lies.

As Padma should know by now, there are no easy shortcuts on her planet. And suddenly retirement seems farther away than ever: she’s just stumbled into a secret corporate mission to stop a plant disease that could wipe out all the industrial sugarcane in Occupied Space. If she ever wants to have another drink of her favorite rum, she’s going to have to fight her way through the city’s warehouses, sewage plants, and up the elevator itself to stop this new plague.

File Under: Science Fiction [ Plagues, Plots & Planets • One-Eyed Wonder • Bad Tips, Good Tipples • This Little Bar I Know ]
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Paul Tassi

The Last Exodus
The Earthborn Trilogy 1
Talos Press, September 8, 2015
Trade Paperback and eBook, 348 pages

The Earth lies in ruins in the aftermath of an extraterrestrial invasion, the land devastated by a desperate war with no winners between mankind and a race of vicious, intelligent creatures. The seas are drying up while the atmosphere corrodes and slowly cooks any life remaining on the now desolate rock. Food is scarce, trust even more so, and the only people left alive all have done horrific things to stay that way.

Among the few survivors is Lucas, an ordinary man hardened by the last few years after the world’s end. He’s fought off bandits, murderers, and stranded creatures on his long trek across the country in search of his family, the one thing that drives him to outlive his dying planet. What he finds instead is hope, something thought to be lost in the world. There’s a ship buried in a crater wall. One of theirs. One that works. To fly it, Lucas must join forces with a traitorous alien scientist and a captured, merciless raider named Asha. But unless they find common ground, all will die, stranded on a ruined Earth.

Combining gritty post-apocalyptic survival and epic space opera, The Last Exodus is the beginning of a new action-packed science fiction adventure where the future of the human race depends on its survivors leaving the past behind.
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Tom Toner 

The Promise of the Child
Volume One of the Amaranthine Spectrum
Night Shade Books, September 22, 2015
Hardcover and eBook, 460 pages

It is the 147th century.

In the radically advanced post-human worlds of the Amaranthine Firmament, there is a contender to the Immortal throne: Aaron the Long-Life, the Pretender, a man who is not quite a man.

In the barbarous hominid kingdoms of the Prism Investiture, where life is short, cheap, and dangerous, an invention is born that will become the Firmament’s most closely kept secret.

Lycaste, a lovesick reclusive outcast for an unspeakable crime, must journey through the Provinces, braving the grotesques of an ancient, decadent world to find his salvation.

Sotiris, grieving the loss of his sister and awaiting the madness of old age, must relive his twelve thousand years of life to stop the man determined to become Emperor.

Ghaldezuel, knight of the stars, must plunder the rarest treasure in the Firmament—the object the Pretender will stop at nothing to obtain.

From medieval Prague to a lonely Mediterranean cove, and eventually far into the strange vastness of distant worlds, The Promise of the Child is a debut novel of gripping action and astounding ambition unfolding over hundreds of thousands of years, marking the arrival of a brilliant new talent in science fiction.
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Claire Vaye Watkins

Gold Fame Citrus
Riverhead Books, September 29, 2015
Hardcover and eBook, 352 pages

The much-anticipated first novel from a Story Prize-winning “5 Under 35” fiction writer.

In 2012, Claire Vaye Watkins’s story collection, Battleborn, swept nearly every award for short fiction. Now this young writer, widely heralded as a once-in-a-generation talent, returns with a first novel that harnesses the sweeping vision and deep heart that made her debut so arresting to a love story set in a devastatingly imagined near future:

Unrelenting drought has transfigured Southern California into a surreal, phantasmagoric landscape. With the Central Valley barren, underground aquifer drained, and Sierra snowpack entirely depleted, most “Mojavs,” prevented by both armed vigilantes and an indifferent bureaucracy from freely crossing borders to lusher regions, have allowed themselves to be evacuated to internment camps. In Los Angeles’ Laurel Canyon, two young Mojavs—Luz, once a poster child for the Bureau of Conservation and its enemies, and Ray, a veteran of the “forever war” turned surfer—squat in a starlet’s abandoned mansion. Holdouts, they subsist on rationed cola and whatever they can loot, scavenge, and improvise.

The couple’s fragile love somehow blooms in this arid place, and for the moment, it seems enough. But when they cross paths with a mysterious child, the thirst for a better future begins. They head east, a route strewn with danger: sinkholes and patrolling authorities, bandits and the brutal, omnipresent sun. Ghosting after them are rumors of a visionary dowser—a diviner for water—and his followers, who whispers say have formed a colony at the edge of a mysterious sea of dunes.

Immensely moving, profoundly disquieting, and mind-blowingly original, Watkins’s novel explores the myths we believe about others and tell about ourselves, the double-edged power of our most cherished relationships, and the shape of hope in a precarious future that may be our own.
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Fran Wilde

Updraft
Tor Books, September 1, 2015
Hardcover and eBook, 368 pages

Welcome to a world of wind and bone, songs and silence, betrayal and courage.

Kirit Densira cannot wait to pass her wingtest and begin flying as a trader by her mother's side, being in service to her beloved home tower and exploring the skies beyond. When Kirit inadvertently breaks Tower Law, the city's secretive governing body, the Singers, demand that she become one of them instead. In an attempt to save her family from greater censure, Kirit must give up her dreams to throw herself into the dangerous training at the Spire, the tallest, most forbidding tower, deep at the heart of the City.

As she grows in knowledge and power, she starts to uncover the depths of Spire secrets. Kirit begins to doubt her world and its unassailable Laws, setting in motion a chain of events that will lead to a haunting choice, and may well change the city forever-if it isn't destroyed outright.
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Kai Ashante Wilson

The Sorcerer of the Wildeeps
Tor.com, September 1, 2015
Trade Paperback and eBook, 224 pages

Critically acclaimed author Kai Ashante Wilson makes his commercial debut with this striking, wondrous tale of gods and mortals, magic and steel, and life and death that will reshape how you look at sword and sorcery.

Since leaving his homeland, the earthbound demigod Demane has been labeled a sorcerer. With his ancestors' artifacts in hand, the Sorcerer follows the Captain, a beautiful man with song for a voice and hair that drinks the sunlight.
The two of them are the descendants of the gods who abandoned the Earth for Heaven, and they will need all the gifts those divine ancestors left to them to keep their caravan brothers alive.
The one safe road between the northern oasis and southern kingdom is stalked by a necromantic terror. Demane may have to master his wild powers and trade humanity for godhood if he is to keep his brothers and his beloved captain alive.
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Hester Young

The Gates of Evangeline
Charlie Cates 1
G.P. Putnam's Sons, September 1, 2015
Hardcover and eBook, 416 pages

From a unique new talent comes a fast-paced debut, introducing a heroine whose dark visions bring to light secrets that will heal or destroy those around her . . .

When New York journalist and recently bereaved mother Charlotte “Charlie” Cates begins to experience vivid dreams about children she’s sure that she’s lost her mind. Yet these are not the nightmares of a grieving parent, she soon realizes. They are messages and warnings that will help Charlie and the children she sees, if only she can make sense of them.

After a little boy in a boat appears in Charlie’s dreams asking for her help, Charlie finds herself entangled in a thirty-year-old missing-child case that has never ceased to haunt Louisiana’s prestigious Deveau family. Armed with an invitation to Evangeline, the family’s sprawling estate, Charlie heads south, where new friendships and an unlikely romance bring healing. But as she uncovers long-buried secrets of love, money, betrayal, and murder, the facts begin to implicate those she most wants to trust—and her visions reveal an evil closer than she could’ve imagined.A Southern Gothic mystery debut that combines literary suspense and romance with a mystical twist, THE GATES OF EVANGELINE is a story that readers of Gillian Flynn, Kate Atkinson, and Alice Sebold won’t be able to put down.
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